News:

The Book of the Diner is well worth preserving. I only wish it had reached a broader audience when it might have mattered more. That is a testament to the blindness of our culture. If there is a future to look back from, one difficult question historians will have to ask is how we let this happen, when so many saw it coming. This site has certainly aggregated enough information and critical thinking to prove that.[/b]

Recently, a team of scientists wanted to determine the extent of plastic pollution and its effects on animals by investigating the most remote regions of the ocean, sending vehicles to the deepest marine trenches to collect tiny amphipods — shrimp-like creatures — that scavenge for food in the harsh environment.

Across six trenches that were studied, 72% of amphipods contained plastic particles. Although the plastic pieces were minuscule, the researchers told the Atlantic that relative to the creature’s size, the fibers were equivalent to a human swallowing a meter of plastic rope.

Alan Jamieson, the lead author of the report, told the Atlantic that the plastic likely harms the creatures in multiple ways. For one, plastic is indigestible and therefore takes up space in the gut. If enough plastic is in an animal’s stomach, the creature could mistakenly think it's full and starve to death as a result.

Amphipods living in the deepest parts of the oceans are, by necessity, excellent scavengers. The relative scarcity of food and lack of light miles underwater make any morsel of food valuable. As a result, amphipods are uniquely vulnerable to consuming pieces of plastic.

Future research will have to be done to figure out how plastic consumption affects amphipod health.

It’s likely that amphipods are similarly harmed by plastic and, if that’s the case, then plastic pollution poses an existential to marine ecosystems. These tiny creatures are a source of food for other animals and their decline could ricochet throughout marine food chains.

SCIENTISTS HAVE FOR the first time shown that some wild corals are feeding on tiny shreds of plastic trash. Worse, the animals seem to prefer those ‘microplastics’ over their natural food—even when the plastic is carrying bacteria that can kill them.

The new study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, focused on a temperate species of coral collected off Rhode Island, one that builds small clusters no larger than a human fist. But researchers say the findings suggest that more familiar tropical, reef-building corals may also be consuming—and being harmed by—microplastics, which are defined as bits of plastic waste smaller than a fifth of an inch across.

The new results add to the growing sense that microplastics are ubiquitous in the environment, from tall mountain peaks to the deepest ocean trenches. Many organisms, from fish to birds, have been found to eat small bits of plastic. So do humans, through tainted water and food sources.

I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world.You don’t know what it is but its there, like a splinter in your mind

The scale of plastic waste in our oceans is enormous. We’ve all seen and recoiled at the photos of precious marine wildlife and birds with plastic-filled stomachs, but as previously reported here on Wake Up World, it’s not only the larger pieces of plastic which are a threat. Microplastics, pieces 5mm across or smaller, are everywhere. According to a 2015 study, there could be up to 51 trillion pieces in our oceans. [1]

Microplastics have been found at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest point in the ocean. [2] They are also found in the fish and shellfish we eat, and therefore in human excrement. We don’t yet know for sure how the microplastics we ingest harm our health, but it’s a pretty safe bet that they do. The microplastics ingested by marine life are known to cause tumours and liver issues. [3]

Although some innovative ideas are being developed to deal with large plastic waste, combatting microplastics has remained a key problem. That could be about to change, as a new study published in the journal Matter reveals. [4]

Scientists have created microscopic nano tubes, thinner than a human hair, made from carbon and coated with nitrogen and manganese, a magnetic metal. The two coatings create a chemical reaction which results in highly reactive oxygen molecules. This oxidation process decomposes and mineralizes microplastics, turning them into carbon dioxide, water and harmless salts. These end products are harmless to the marine environment, or even potentially beneficial as a carbon source for algae growth.

I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world.You don’t know what it is but its there, like a splinter in your mind

What could possibly go wrong?Just like we always seem to want a pill to instantly fix our ails rather than change lifestyle, or even god forbid put up with some discomfort, we now want an instant techno fix rather than stop trashing the joint.Every technological advance has unforeseen side effects, just like every drug has side effects, some unforeseen. Thalidomide anyone?

You want less plastic in the oceans?Stop buying shit made of plastic morons.

What could possibly go wrong?Just like we always seem to want a pill to instantly fix our ails rather than change lifestyle, or even god forbid put up with some discomfort, we now want an instant techno fix rather than stop trashing the joint.Every technological advance has unforeseen side effects, just like every drug has side effects, some unforeseen. Thalidomide anyone?

You want less plastic in the oceans?Stop buying shit made of plastic morons.

Everywhere I see stupid people. I think I will become a hermit.

JOW

There will probably be plastic there, too.

Quote

You want less plastic in the oceans?Stop buying shit made of plastic morons.

What could possibly go wrong?Just like we always seem to want a pill to instantly fix our ails rather than change lifestyle, or even god forbid put up with some discomfort, we now want an instant techno fix rather than stop trashing the joint.Every technological advance has unforeseen side effects, just like every drug has side effects, some unforeseen. Thalidomide anyone?

You want less plastic in the oceans?Stop buying shit made of plastic morons.

I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world.You don’t know what it is but its there, like a splinter in your mind

As new disease wipes out Caribbean coral, scientists tear up reefs to stop the spread

Coral Collapse

The reef plague

The building blocks of the undersea infrastructure are being decimated by a mysterious plague. And no one is sure how to stop it.

Photography by Lucas JacksonStory by Lucas Jackson and Chris PrenticeGraphics by Travis Hartman

PUBLISHED Sept. 26, 2019

Off the coast of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, a group of scientists is tearing a reef apart in a feverish attempt to save some of its coral.

They are battling a fast-moving, lethal disease that researchers say is unprecedented in the speed with which it can damage large numbers of coral species across the Caribbean Sea.

Breaking their cardinal rule to never touch the coral, the scientists are removing diseased specimens to try to stop the disease spreading and save what remains.

Meanwhile, researchers and divers in Florida, where the disease was first spotted in 2014, are also removing coral samples and shipping them to places as far-flung as Kansas and Oklahoma, in a last-ditch effort to save the 20 species or more thought to be susceptible to what has been dubbed Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease.

RAVAGED REEFS

Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease was first observed around Virginia Key near Miami in 2014. It spread to the northernmost extent of the Florida coral reef tract by 2017 and has now extended past Key West to the south.

Source: Florida Department of Environmental Protection

The disease prompts rapid tissue loss, appearing first as white patches that sprawl out across the coral, before eventually stripping it of color and life altogether.

About half the coral species that make up Florida’s reef tracts and about a third of those throughout the Caribbean are vulnerable to the disease, at a time when the delicate ecosystems are already threatened by climate change.

Overall, Florida’s Upper Keys have seen greater than 40% loss in coral cover between 2013 and 2018, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission.

Diver downGraduate students and research technicians (top) regularly dive around the University of the Virgin Islands campus in St. Thomas to inspect corals affected by Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD). Research technician Danielle Lasseigne, works with graduate students (left) to remove diseased corals. Lasseigne cuts a brain coral (Pseudodiploria Strigosa) with a steel chisel to remove the portion of the animal being killed by SCTLD.Photos by Lucas Jackson

Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease has been identified in seven other Caribbean localities, according to the Florida Sea Grant, a university-based program funded by the federal government. Unlike the more well-known coral bleaching phenomenon, coral typically cannot recover from Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease. The species fall victim to it at different paces, with a mortality rate of 66-100 percent.

“I have never seen anything that affects so many species, so quickly and so viciously — and it just continues,” said Marilyn Brandt of the University of the Virgin Islands, who is one of the researchers involved in the efforts to save the reefs near St. Thomas.

DiseasedA nail is used to mark the extent of tissue killed by SCTLD.Photo by Lucas Jackson

CORAL ANATOMY

Pillar coral are composed of colonies of up to thousands of small polyps that grow slowly over hundreds of years. They feed via a symbiotic relationship with the algae (zooxanthellae) in their skin, slowly forming a limestone skeleton that helps provide shelter and breeding grounds for aquatic life.

“All the diseases I’ve studied in the past could be considered like the flu. They come every year, seasonally, and sometimes there are worse outbreaks. This thing is more like Ebola. It’s a killer, and we don’t know how to stop it.”

Brandt’s team first spotted the disease along the west coast of St. Thomas in January and have launched a frantic effort to try to stem its advance, resorting to removing diseased corals with a hammer and chisel to try to salvage the rest.

“The coral basically liquefies from the inside out,” Brandt said.​

Healthy Coral

Healthy coral have a symbiotic relationship with the algae that lives in its skin cells. The algae gives the normally transparent coral polyp its color and provides the coral with up to 90% of its energy which allows it to multiply and build up its limestone skeleton.

Bleaching

Abnormally warm or cold water, pollution or some other stressor causes the algae to leave the coral polyp’s skin. The white limestone skeleton now shows through the transparent polyp. It can recover if the stressor subsides in time and the algae returns.​

Stony Coral Tissue Loss

The disease causes rapid tissue loss when the coral and the algae within liquify from the inside out. If the disease does not fully destroy the colony, the coral has a chance to regrow, though it is very rare that SCTLD leaves any part of the coral alive.

WEAKENED SYSTEM

The disease was first identified near Miami, Florida, where the port was conducting a dredging project, and has now spread throughout almost all of the state’s reef tract.

The coral in the area were already stressed from the dredging and a recent bleaching event, so it was unsurprising they got hit with a disease, the scientists told Reuters. Like with a human body, a weakened immune system can make coral more susceptible to disease.

“All the diseases I’ve studied in the past could be considered like the flu. They come every year, seasonally, and sometimes there are worse outbreaks. This thing is more like Ebola. It’s a killer, and we don’t know how to stop it.”

Marilyn Brandt

Research Associate Professor, University of the Virgin Islands

“We tend to just study these events. We monitor them. We try to research what to do. We just watch it happen and assume that Mother Nature is going to be able to take the reins and everything’s going to be fine,” said Maurizio Martinelli, Coral Disease Response Coordinator at the Florida Sea Grant.

But the scale of the new disease has led to a more urgent approach. Large coral individuals that scientists have estimated to be hundreds of years old have been dying within a matter of several weeks, according to the scientists’ estimates.

“We can’t just watch these corals all die in front of us,” Martinelli said.

First noticed

January 2019

Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease is first spotted around the Flat Cay islands.

Spreading by current

February 2019

The disease seems to be following the prevailing near-shore currents which tend to run east to west along the south side of the island.

Widespread disease

April 2019

Five months after first sighting, the disease has progressed to coral reefs on the north side of the island.

Severe problem

June 2019

The first group of coral reefs that were seen to have the disease have become severely infected.

Source: Data courtesy of Marilyn Brandt, University of Virgin Islands

Corals, which cover about 1 percent of the Earth's surface, are animals that settle on the ocean floor and support more sea life than any other marine environment. As well as supporting thousands of species of plants, fish and other sea life, they draw huge numbers of tourists, scientists and divers.

They also provide a natural barrier to flooding, preventing $1.8 billion worth of damages to buildings, business and coastal economies and protecting more than 18,000 citizens annually in the United States alone, according to a 2019 U.S. Geological Survey report.

Four PillarsFour varieties of pillar corals (Dengrogyra cylindrus) to be studied by scientists sit in water at the Florida Aquarium. This species of coral is extremely susceptible to SCTLD.Video by Lucas Jackson

But the federal budget to protect coral reefs has been largely unchanged for years, and that's left coral science in the "Middle Ages," said coral scientist William Precht.

The disease is likely the deadliest for coral since so-called white-band disease emerged in the 1970s, almost wiping out two kinds of coral, he said.

“Now, we’re looking at a similar type of disease, but instead of affecting two species, it hits 22,” said Precht.

Some of the corals here are already bleaching, losing their color, which is a sign that they're being stressed by heat or acidity. The Ocean Agency/XL Catlin Seaview Survey/Richard Vevers

--Since 2016, coral bleaching events have killed off approximately half of the Great Barrier Reef, the largest and most extensive reef system in the world.--The heat and acidity devastating the Great Barrier Reef are killing other corals around the globe.--Without coral reefs, there could be a rippling ecosystem collapse in the oceans, with devastating effects on the planet.

One-third of the 3,863 reefs that make up the Great Barrier Reef — the largest, most extensive reef system in the world — went through a catastrophic die-off after a searing heat wave in 2016, according to a study newly published in the journal Nature. A bleaching event in 2017 devastated even more of that reef, and the cumulative effects have killed an estimated half of the magnificent system in just two years.

The same devastation is hitting reefs around the world .According to some estimates, similar conditions around the globe have killed off about half the world's coral reefs in the past 30 years.

The Great Barrier Reef corals were vulnerable because they've been subjected to warming oceans that are rapidly becoming more acidic. Those changes have been driven by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, which are warming the world and causing Earth's climate to change faster than reefs can keep up.

A healthy ocean depends on reefs

Reefs are stunning psychedelic wonderlands that snorkelers and divers love to explore — they're full of colorful shapes, swaying and branching creatures, and more. Reefs provide jobs for people in fishing and tourism industries, and they also protect coastal areas from surging seas.

“You like to breathe?” Crosby asked. “Estimates are that up to 80% of the oxygen you are breathing in right now comes from the ocean. It doesn’t come from the land. In order for you to continue to breathe, you have to have a healthy ocean.”

There are ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ among corals as they respond to the accumulating impacts of climate change.ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies/ Mia Hoogenboom

How reefs end

The reason reefs are dying is human activity.

In some places, overfishing has wiped out healthy food chains, allowing algae and parasites to overwhelm corals. At other sites, boats dragging anchors and nets — or just scraping along the sea floor — have damaged or destroyed reefs. Pollution from agriculture and runoff from cities can cause disease and kill these creatures as well.

But most importantly, the burning of fossil fuels has warmed the planet. And Earth's oceans have absorbed the majority of that heat, about 90% of it so far.

As waters rapidly warm, corals lose the components that give them color and help them produce food, a process called bleaching. That slows their growth and makes them vulnerable to algae, disease, and death. Increased ocean acidification caused by the absorption of carbon dioxide causes bleaching, too.

It's these bleaching events that have rapidly wiped out so much of the Great Barrier Reef. The same conditions can be seen in the Caribbean and other sites around the world.

At present rates, it's expected that by 2030, 60% of all coral reefs are expected to be highly or critically threatened, and 98% of reefs will be exposed to potentially fatal conditions every year.

It's possible that coral reefs around the world could be mostly wiped out by 2050 or soon after.

As the authors wrote in the recent Great Barrier Reef study, these processes are likely to continue — and they'll totally transform ocean ecosystems.

"The most likely scenario, therefore, is that coral reefs throughout the tropics will continue to degrade over the current century until climate change stabilizes, allowing remnant populations to reorganize into novel, heat-tolerant reef assemblages," the authors wrote.

In other words, reefs as we know them – and the habitats and greater ecosystems they support — will be gone. What'll remain are areas or corals that happen to be abnormally tolerant of heat or acid. But coral reefs overall won't be the same and whatever does survive likely won't be able to make up for the lost functions.

A last ditch effort to save reefs?

Around the world, scientists are trying to come up with ways to save reefs.

Efforts include identifying coral that's particularly resilient to heat or acidity, and pioneering ways to quickly regrow coral so that dying reefs can be re-populated.

Courtesy Mote Marine Laboratory

Scientists involved in this work have achieved impressive results: in some cases they've recreating coral organisms that originally took a century or two to grow in just a few years.

But as demonstrated by the massive die-offs at the largest reef system in the planet, these sorts of efforts won't be enough to save the world's reefs without dealing with the larger carbon emissions problem. Individual efforts can't keep up when 50% of the world's biggest reef system dies in just a couple of years.

As the researchers wrote in their new paper, the important question is when climate change could stabilize. If humans make that happen soon, more reef systems will be able to be preserved. Then — using these sorts of regrowing techniques — they could eventually be restored to some degree.

But if climate change isn't stabilized soon, the authors wrote, "[t]he large-scale loss of functionally diverse corals is a harbinger of further radical shifts in the condition and dynamics of all ecosystems, reinforcing the need for risk assessment of ecosystem collapse."

In other words, if we don't deal with the problem soon, we should think about what widespread ocean ecosystem collapse will look like and mean for humanity.

In that type of scenario, cities will lose their protection against big storm surges, fishing and tourism industries could be eliminated, and the ocean may become largely lifeless or at least extremely transformed.

As Crosby said, the consequences from that bleak transformation could be more severe than most of us can imagine.

The Facts:The Ocean Cleanup organization announced this week that their System 001/B vessel is capturing and collecting plastic debris in in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Reflect On:There are many young people out there with the desire to do good and have a positive impact. Many people have a strong desire to change the world in various ways, and that’s an encouraging thought was we move into 2020 and beyond.

In the Pacific ocean, North East of Hawaii, there exists a giant whirlpool of plastic debris that’s accumulated by the ocean currents. It’s referred to at the North Pacific Gyre, but also commonly referred to as “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” It’s one of the largest ecosystems on Earth, made up of millions of square kilometers. The Great Garbage Patch is approximately the size of Queensland, Australia, where an enormous amount of plastic is spread throughout the ocean.

Plastic pollution in our oceans is obviously one of the biggest issues our planet faces today. We must clean up our mother, and we must do it now. Plastic pollution has also created microplastic pollution. Microplastics are a huge problem, and microplastic contamination is now extremely widespread. More than five trillion pieces of plastic, collectively weighing nearly 269,000 tonnes, are floating in the world’s oceans. Data collected by scientists from the US, France, Chile, Australia and New Zealand suggests a minimum of 5.25 tonnes of plastic particles exists in the oceans, most of them being microplastics measuring less than 5mm. (source)

All living beings within the ocean are also suffering from microplastic pollution. The good news is is that the contraption below is also harvesting microplastics.

This is why it was encouraging when we came across news showing that after one year of testing, The Ocean Cleanup organization announced this week that their System 001/B vessel is capturing and collecting plastic debris in this area of the ocean, and doing so successfully. The system uses natural forces of the ocean to catch the plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a principle behind the cleanup that was first presented by the creator, Boyan Slat back in October 2012.

The patch, again, is very large, representing a huge piece of trash that’s drifting halfway between California and Hawaii.

As the Good News Network explains:

After discovering the patch in the 90s, scientists said it would take thousands of years to clean it up—but Slat quickly made a name for himself after he presented a TEDx talk in which he claimed that he could do it in less than ten, if he could get his special machinery built.

Though his claim caused many skeptics to raise their eyebrows, Slat dropped out of college so he could bring his plans to life. In addition to crowdfunding $2.2 million for his idea, he garnered millions more dollars through interested investors.

Now, the System 001/B vessel—which launched from Vancouver in June—is The Ocean Cleanup’s second attempt to prove its concept of collecting garbage from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. In addition to collecting plainly visible pieces of plastic debris, as well as much larger ghost nets associated with commercial fishing, System 001/B has also successfully captured microplastics as small as 1 millimeter—a feat which the organization was pleasantly surprised to achieve.

I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world.You don’t know what it is but its there, like a splinter in your mind

Scientists have discovered an ingenious way to restore life to the dead patches of the Great Barrier Reef.

ELIAS MARAT

TMU) — Dead coral reefs have become one of the major horrors resulting from human impact, with thousands of miles of coral ecosystem across the globe being transformed into bleached-out graveyards due to the devastating impact of fast-heating ocean temperatures, rising sea levels, pollution, and overfishing

And for years, the Great Barrier Reef off Australia’s coast—the largest living structure on the entire planet—has faced a slow death, with massive amounts of the corals simply dying while the rest of the once-dazzling coral transforms into bleached, lifeless matter.

But now, scientists have discovered an ingenious way to restore life to the dead patches of the Great Barrier Reef: by playing the ambient sounds of nature through loudspeakers to lure fish to the area. The fish would then help to clean up the reef, allowing for the growth of fresh corals necessary to recover reef ecosystems.

Scientists had long been concerned about the deadly quiet surrounding damaged coral reefs, which once teemed with the sound of healthy marine life, creating a sort of oceanic orchestra of sounds from fish, shrimp, and various other reef denizens. But without the sound of such traffic, many fish simply avoid the dead zones.

So a team of researchers led by marine biologists at the University of Exeter set up a system of submarine loudspeakers to play recordings of healthy reefs in a bid to attract the attention of fish to the dead coral patches around Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef.

The results, which were published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature Communications, were astounding.

According to a Friday press release by the University of Exeter:

“The study found that broadcasting healthy reef sound doubled the total number of fish arriving onto experimental patches of reef habitat, as well as increasing the number of species present by 50 percent.”

The study’s lead author, marine biologist Tim Gordon, said:

“Fish are crucial for coral reefs to function as healthy ecosystems … Boosting fish populations in this way could help to kick-start natural recovery processes, counteracting the damage we’re seeing on many coral reefs around the world.”

Steve Simpson, a fellow marine biologist at the University of Exeter and co-author of the study, added:“Healthy coral reefs are remarkably noisy places—the crackle of snapping shrimp and the whoops and grunts of fish combine to form a dazzling biological soundscape. Juvenile fish home in on these sounds when they’re looking for a place to settle.

Reefs become ghostly quiet when they are degraded, as the shrimps and fish disappear, but by using loudspeakers to restore this lost soundscape, we can attract young fish back again.

The loudspeaker experiment, which lasted about six weeks, could provide one more tool in the ongoing fight to restore and protect the world’s dying coral reefs.

However, the broadcasting of healthy reef sounds won’t necessarily allow the dead patches to miraculously swing back to life. Continued restoration efforts and moves to mitigate or halt climate change remain crucial in saving the Great Barrier Reef.

Andy Radford, a co-author from the University of Bristol, noted:

“Acoustic enrichment is a promising technique for management on a local basis.

If combined with habitat restoration and other conservation measures, rebuilding fish communities in this manner might accelerate ecosystem recovery.

However, we still need to tackle a host of other threats including climate change, overfishing and water pollution in order to protect these fragile ecosystems.”

I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world.You don’t know what it is but its there, like a splinter in your mind

FILE - In this Jan. 7, 2016 file photo, dead common murres lie washed up on a rocky beach in Whittier, Alaska. In August 2018, federal wildlife officials are asking Alaska coastal communities to report dead and dying seabirds that have appear along beaches since May. Hundreds of thousands of common murres, a fast-flying seabird, died from starvation four winters ago in the North Pacific, and a new research paper attempts to explain why. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen, File)

SEATTLE – Though murres look like skinny penguins, these resilient birds can dive more than two football fields below the ocean’s surface in search of prey.

So, when nearly one million of them washed ashore from California to Alaska in 2015 and 2016, scientists all over the nation were stunned, including those at the University of Washington.

UW researchers blame this phenomenon on the unexpected squeeze on the ecosystem’s food supply, brought on by the long-lasting marine heat wave known as the “The Blob.”

“Think of it as a run on the grocery stores at the same time that the delivery trucks to the stores [stop] coming,” said UW professor Julia Parrish, one of the key finders of the study in a news release.

She says that there were fewer fish and smaller prey in general for murres to feast on. At the same time, there was increased competition from big fish predators like walleye, pollock and Pacific cod.

FILE -In this Jan. 7, 2016, photo, dead common murres lie on a rocky beach in Whittier, Alaska. Hundreds of thousands of common murres, a fast-flying seabird, died from starvation four winters ago in the North Pacific, and a new research paper attempts to explain why. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen, File)

Researchers found that persistent warmer temperatures associated with “The Blob” interrupted food patterns of creatures in the food chain, whether big or small.

For example, cold water produces the biggest and fattiest varieties of forge fish, the main prey of murres. But the heatwave reduced the nutritional value of zooplankton by stunting their growth.

Also, the metabolism of large fish like Pacific cod, walleye and pollock increased in warmer waters, so these guys began eating more forge fish.

With predatory fish eating up, the demand to sustain food for the “big guys," aka murres, wasn’t happening. The demand to supply ratio just wasn’t there, so the once bountiful school of forge fish that murres relied on become harder to find.

FILE - In this March 11, 2016 file photo, wildlife biologists Rob Kaler, of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Sarah Schoen, of the U.S. Geological Survey, examine body parts of a common murre during a necropsy on in Anchorage, Alaska. Hundreds of thousands of common murres, a fast-flying seabird, died from starvation four winters ago in the North Pacific, and a new research paper attempts to explain why. (AP Photo/Dan Joling, File)

“Food demands of large commercial groundfish like cod, pollock, halibut and hake were predicted to increase dramatically with the level of warming observed with the "Blob," and since they eat many of the same prey as murres, this competition likely compounded the food supply problem for murres, leading to mass mortality events from starvation,” said lead author John Piatt, a research biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Alaska Science Center and an affiliate professor in the UW School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences.

Citizen scientists in Alaska monitoring long-term nesting sites of murres along the cliffs and rocky ledges overlooking the ocean, counted deaths that reached 1,000 times more than normal for their beaches.

Many of those birds were breeding-age adults. The study authors found that as food availability shifted, so did the murre’s ability to reproduce for years during and after the heat wave.

FILE - In this Jan. 5, 2016, file photo, Guy Runco, director of the Bird Treatment and Learning Center, releases a common murre near the Anchorage small boat harbor in Anchorage, Alaska. Hundreds of thousands of common murres, a fast-flying seabird, died from starvation four winters ago in the North Pacific, and a new research paper attempts to explain why. (AP Photo/Dan Joling, File)

Though about 62,000 murre carcasses washed ashore, scientists estimate that the actual number of deaths was closer to a million. That’s because only a fraction of birds that die will wash ashore and only a fraction will be in areas that people can access.

The Pacific Coast’s warming temperatures can be dated back to the fall and winter of 2013 and persisted for another two years. The arrival of El Niño in 2015 perpetuated warmer waters, and it wasn’t just the murres that suffered the consequences. Tufted puffins, Cassin’s auklets, sea lions and baleen whales all died in large numbers – though the murre die-off was by far the largest.

“The magnitude and scale of this failure has no precedent,” Piatt said. “It was astonishing and alarming and a red-flag warning about the tremendous impact sustained ocean warming can have on the marine ecosystem.”